Germany never changes... German leader says multiculturalism has failed.

[Al B. Sure!]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101017...20101017090638

BERLIN (AFP) – Germany's attempts to create a multi-cultural society in which people from various cultural backgrounds live together peacefully have failed, Chancellor Angela Merkel has said.
"Multikulti", the concept that "we are now living side by side and are happy about it," does not work, Merkel told a meeting of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party at Potsdam near Berlin.
"This approach has failed, totally," she said.
Merkel spoke a week after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in which they pledged to do more to improve the often poor integration record of Germany's 2.5-million-strong Turkish community.
Horst Seehofer, the leader of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, CSU, told the same party meeting Friday that the two Union parties were "committed to a dominant German culture and opposed to a multicultural one.
"'Multikulti' is dead," he said.
While warning against "immigration that weighs down on our social system", Merkel said that Germany needed specialists from overseas to keep the pace of its economic development.
According to the head of the German chamber of commerce and industry, Hans Heinrich Driftmann, Germany is in urgent need of about 400,000 engineers and qualified workers.
"The lack is causing a loss of growth of about one percent," he said in an interview.
Jewish leaders in Germany meanwhile warned that German society and democracy were under threat from extremists.
A recent expert study should prompt the government to act against antidemocratic ideas, the secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Stephan Kramer, told the Rheinpfalz am Sonntag weekly.
The study, by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation think tank, showed that more than one third (34.3 percent) of those surveyed believed Germany's 16 million immigrants or people with foreign origins came to the country for the social benefits.
Around the same number (35.6 percent) think Germany is being "over-run by foreigners" and more than one in 10 called for a "Fuehrer" to run the country "with a strong hand".
Thirty-two percent of people said they agreed with the statement: "Foreigners should be sent home when jobs are scarce."
Far-right attitudes are found not only at the extremes of German society, but "to a worrying degree at the centre of society," the report noted.
More than half (58.4 percent) of the 2,411 people polled thought the around four million Muslims in Germany should have their religious practices "significantly curbed."
The integration of Muslims has been a hot button issue since August when a member of Germany's central bank sparked outrage by saying the country was being made "more stupid" by poorly educated and unproductive Muslim migrants with headscarves.
The banker, Thilo Sarrazin, has since resigned but his book on the subject -- "Germany Does Itself In" -- has flown off the shelves, and polls showed considerable sympathy for some of his views.
Kramer also criticised CSU leader Seehofer for ideas which he said were "not only petty but outright irresponsible" and slammed the current immigration debate as "hysterical".

Just more European racism... We truly take for granted things like freedom of religion and democracy here in the US and assume that our fellow first worlders value the same things. Guess not.

1 in 10 want a Fuhrer!

[C0ckney]

i thought you'd support a fuhrer speer...

[OzzyKP]

Europe

[Al B. Sure!]

Europe

I mean really can you believe it? I could never even fathom an American president ever saying something like "that whole multiculturalism and diversity thing... yeah, abject failure. We've given up on that"

Like holy crap!

[Hauldren Collider]

If you can't understand this, Alby, then you aren't very understanding of other cultures.

[Elok]

The USA is something of an aberration where "multiculturalism" is concerned. We, along with Canada, Australia and maybe a handful of other young nations, are a place where nationality and ethnicity are, at least in theory, completely divorced. American identity is largely based on acceptance of a set of abstract ideas or principles. That's really not the usual situation around the world.

EDIT: Which isn't to say that anti-immigrant backlashes are good, but HC does have a point here.

[Heraclitus]

I think Americans have a hard time understanding why saying Germany should be inhabited by Germans dosen't sound evil to the average European. And saying Pakistan should be inhabited by a Muslim majority doesn't seem evil to the average Pakistani. In both cases this is not a decision people can make for them, it is something they have a right to decide themselves.

This isnot a European thing. Think Japan, Iran, South Korea, Taiwan, Ethiopia, Turkey ect. this is the default human norm all over the planet, former WASPy countries are more or less freaks in this regard, perhaps with France also being a universalist state.


European countries don't really have ideas to base themselves around. Why have a Poland a Roumania a Denmerk if they are all based on and only on ideas like universal human rights, democracy, rule of law, multiculturalism, welfare state, high taxation ect. why not just apply for US statehood or just absolve national sovereignty in favour of some Transcontinental spanning Liberal state? Why bother preserving the local languages?


Deep down despite constant scolding from the EU most European citizens do expect fellow citizens to share the same nationality. And yes nationality is synonymous with the ethnic group. Someone's nationality means being part first and foremost part of a nation not a state. Austro-Hungarians did think of themselves as Austro-Hungarians but when asked for their nationality they would state German, Hungarian, Serbian, ect. in also if you asked some inhabitants of a region of Western Russia a century or more ago what their nationality was they would say Polish not Russian.

[gribbler]

I mean really can you believe it? I could never even fathom an American president ever saying something like "that whole multiculturalism and diversity thing... yeah, abject failure. We've given up on that"

Like holy crap!

Let's impose American norms on the rest of the world. Now I see why you want to become a marine and kill afghans.

[Al B. Sure!]

Nice. Defending racism as a multicultural right.. ironic that for the sake of multiculturalism you support the opposition to multiculturalism.

[Heraclitus]

Killing Brown people until they agree to be just like us





Hey what if I let the Brown people live and live as they wish if they promise not to bother me? What if I spent some of that surplus money on alleviating poverty, lowering taxes or actual defence programs?

[Barnabas]

In Argentina we received many thousands of muslim immigrants in the late XIX and early XIX century, and most ended up being absorbed and with Catholic descendants.

I think that the main reason for that were 2:
130 years ago the cultural distance between a syrian peasant and a spanish/italian/latin american peasant were much smaller than nowadays, they were all peasants, their wives would wear scarves on the head, and were socially conservative.

The other is that they were completely isolated and surrounded by catholics, in the other extreme of the world, so the pressure against apostatizing was very weak.

Nowadays that is impossible in Europe, the middle east is right next to europe and the low classes of the middle east (or most middle easterners perhaps) are very different from modern euro westerners

The problem is muslims, not multiculturalism, I don't think the Germans have any problem with the Vietnamese

[Theben]

I think the problem is the number of muslims, the fact that more are showing up all the time and ethnic Germans aren't breeding fast enough.

[Kitschum]

I'm not convinced that the problem lies fundamentally with Muslims, except that there are so many of them. Within the group unhelpfully labeled Muslims there are a lot of variations. It includes Urban Turks from Istanbul as well as rural "Turks" from around Diyarbakir. Brandy-drinking Bosniaks as well as khat-chewing Somalis, if you'll excuse my tone. Not to mention Christian Middle Easterners are almost as clannish and different from Westerners as the Muslims.

As for American exceptionalism, it "works" only at the cost of segregated cities with razor-sharp racial divides, and the world's largest prison population to enforce it. But social darwinism apparently works for you as you've always lived it and don't know a different life. Europeans still remember their traditional, homogeneous, high-trust societies mostly devoid of those same problems you have "solved" in this pragmatic manner, and are suffering a transformational crisis.

Denying that there have been tremendous changes in Europe in a short time due to immigration, globalization and inter-European integration (anti-immigration sentiment often goes hand in hand with EU skepticism) is impossible, and there is a need to discuss it honestly. What Merkel appears to be doing is trying to take command of the discussion and not abandoning it to the fringes of politics. From one perspective it could be seen as an outcome of the traditional parties' fear of losing control of the direction of politics.

[Kitschum]

I mean really can you believe it? I could never even fathom an American president ever saying something like "that whole multiculturalism and diversity thing... yeah, abject failure. We've given up on that"

Like holy crap!

Well, politicians admitting failure is exceptional.

[MikeH]

I think Americans have a hard time understanding why saying Germany should be inhabited by Germans dosen't sound evil to the average European. And saying Pakistan should be inhabited by a Muslim majority doesn't seem evil to the average Pakistani. In both cases this is not a decision people can make for them, it is something they have a right to decide themselves.

I don't know about evil, but it certainly sounds disappointing and verging on racism to this average European.

[C0ckney]

good post kitschum

[MikeH]

The USA is something of an aberration where "multiculturalism" is concerned. We, along with Canada, Australia and maybe a handful of other young nations, are a place where nationality and ethnicity are, at least in theory, completely divorced. American identity is largely based on acceptance of a set of abstract ideas or principles. That's really not the usual situation around the world.

EDIT: Which isn't to say that anti-immigrant backlashes are good, but HC does have a point here.

Nationality and ethnicity are theoretically and legally divorced in the UK and all of the EU. We have racists and xenophobes, everywhere does. If you are trying to claim that the US doesn't have a large percentage of people who consider an "American" to be a White Christian I will suggest you are deluded. Plus - Mexican Border vs Canadian Border. As a political issue the difference between those two is not entirely down to economics.

And Australia has a huge movement against immigration from non-whites. It's a highly controversial subject there. To suggest they are an example to others seems strange.

The rise of these kinds of views is deeply concerning for a lot of Europeans. As it is to a lot of Americans.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

good post kitschum

QFT

[BeBro]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101017...20101017090638

Just more European racism... We truly take for granted things like freedom of religion and democracy here in the US and assume that our fellow first worlders value the same things. Guess not.

1 in 10 want a Fuhrer!

Meh, 1 out of 10 means our democracy is in danger and oh noes teh Yurpeen racism?! Seriously serious WTF?!?! What is indeed more worrying is the "Far-right attitudes are found not only at the extremes of German society, but "to a worrying degree at the centre of society,"- part (and some other points in there -- just yesterday I read the whole study the article mentions), but are you trying to tell me here noone else has similar probs, or that you wouldn't find a lot of stereotypish views even in mainstream US media sometimes? ("war on the middle class" due to all the brown people coming from Mexico etc.).

Also, the multiculti comment from Merkel is more or less a giant strawman to satisfy a certain part of their conservative electorate. For those "multiculturalism" means some kind of anarchy where there are no rules to live with eachother under a common constitution and with same laws for all etc. It means some kind of "anything goes" mentality (which would - if you believe the tabloids - then lead to Sharia law being imposed on us immediately with all the fun stuff like stoning people etc.).

The thing is just that nobody is really arguing in favour of this, and yet it is the reality that we like most modern societies do have multiple cultures, religions in our country etc. which even Merkel's camp accepts.

[MikeH]

The point is, in Europe as in America, you are free to follow your own culture as long as doing so doesn't break the law.

[Az]

Merkel .

Alby you appear to forget how your own country was run just 30 years ago. Multiculturalism is, globally, a relatively new concept.

[Robert Plomp]

Many americans don't understand the problems of Europe.
If we had a multicultural society as the USA, then we wouldn't have these problems. But getting to the USA is a lot harder then getting to Europe. Not to mention that the USA asks immigrants to pay $10,000 on before hand. That attracts a completely different kind of people. The people that get to the USA want to become American. There's no true multiculturalism in America. (or at least not the one Merkel talks about).

I also doubt if it's possible to have true multiculturalism.
Some cultures are group-based, patriarchal, others (our) are based on the right of the individual.
Without claiming that 'our' culture is 'better' then the other cultures, it is absolutely possible to say that it's hard to 'merge' these cultures together. In the patriarchal cultures the acts of the individual have impact on the image and position of the others of his group. That just doesn't fit in with the western juristic system, that's focused on the individual.

There's nothing wrong with a country claiming a dominant culture, and asking it's citizen to adopt to this culture. (and be able to stay diverse as well).
It can't be compared to Nazism or Fascism. Hitler & Co thought there were better people and lesser people. They teached that the superior ubermench was allowed to get rid of the untermench. That's not at all what the people in Europe say more and more. It's not racism, it's realism, it's not always possible to merge cultures together. one may disagree with that, but it's completely ridiculous to always Godwin it at once. (Godwinning is an automatic lose anyway, btw). It's also a showcase of being completely ignorant of what happened in the 30's and 40's of the past century.

Political correctness increases the problems because it doesn't address it and it sends people to more extreme political views. If there will ever be a new form of fascism, then it's caused by mainstream politician ignoring the problems, pushing people who suffer under these problems to the edges of society.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Multiculturalism as defined by some would be about accepting change. It would be about accepting that muslims can build a mosque in your neighborhood if they have money for the site and than have loud prayers 5 times a day from the loudspeakers (that would be if you went all the way to allwoing them to "feel at home"), it would be about accepting living in your village where your grandparents/family lived for generations in your own culture, to have the village settled with 500 foreigners in a year and now you have the place you lived in fundamentally changed by them in a short time space, with potential crime, other issues that were not present before, or simply move out. I disagree with that notion.

All in all, people who did not want to go to foreign countries, have foreign cultures move into your own home and than take over by sheer numbers. That is really a problem for a minority (still), or even a majority, where certain issues are felt on a wider scales.

In the US this cannot be a problem as what was there from the "original" culture it was assimilated into the "new" American culture by force or otherwise, noone was asking Native Americans much at the time, so you do not have those type of issues anymore, just different ones, issues between different people coming together to live in one place...

In Europe the issue with multiculuralism is not that everyone shoud become Chineze (as if we go by numbers alone, this is what will happen), but that countries and cultures should both be "protected" from being overrun by outsiders ala Fiji on national scale, but most frequently on a local scale... and on the other hand - welcomed - by the insiders as long as the law and the customs of the country you came in are respected. Ie being a good guest in someone elses home, and there will be no issues... so no outcries if your girl has to go to school, but in your area of Afghanistan this is forbidden for girls, as an extreme... or requests for loud prayers from your mosque in the neighborhood, just as this is the part of your own baggage that you brought with from wherever you came from...

but on the other hand, no discrimination if you are black/yellow/green/whatever as long as you try to live, ie get an education, job, family, stay out of crime etc... and so on... treat all the criminals the same, all the successful people the same - this should be multiculturalism, treatment on merit and not on origin, it is only that the term is being abused from time to time.

That is all, but issues arise where the local culture is displaced by sheer volume of foreign influx at particular spots, so local people who did not want to move to Pakistan are furious that Pakistan came to them. I see no problem with them feeling that way, but in principle this is the error from a state which allowed such problems to arise, by allowing too high immigrant influx over a too short space in time, and where only solution for a local is to move away to another part of his country where the "change" did not happen, often going with lower local property prices etc... So instad of being assimilated in becoming British, German, French etc... they have assimilated an area to become Pakistan in UK, or Turkey in Germany, or Algeir in France... etc... where you may not be sure if women need to wear a burqa in the neighborhood or face verbal/other kinds of assault... that is an issue, and has nothing to do with "multiculturalism" as such.

[MikeH]

The people that get to the USA want to become American.

The people that get to the USA have to pretend they want to become American.

There's talk of adding a similar scheme in the UK, but I am sceptical it'd really make a difference rather than forcing people to pay lip service to it.

[dannubis]

ALPIE should ask Sloww how his Spanish lessons are progressing to get an idea of how the US sees multiculturalism...

EDIT: and this is NOT intended as a smeer towards USians or Texans

[dannubis]

It is a natural reaction to demand that somebody enetering your comfort zone adapts himself to such a degree that he/she is not a perceived threat anymore. Multiculturalism is "counter natural" in this regard because it is the willingness to lower your definition of perceived threats. European countries still have to find the correct balance and a movement towards the right has been going on for some time now. I am sure it will be followed by a movement to the left.

[Heraclitus]

I don't know about evil, but it certainly sounds disappointing and verging on racism to this average European.

But not evil.

In any case I was talking about continental Europeans here, the UK is one of the former WASPy freaks I was talking about. It is however true that European views on this are closer to American than Pakistani, what can one do European descended people's are pretty WEIRD (Western, Industrialized, Educated, Rich Democratic which makes them psychologically and sociologically pretty abnorma compared to the average human).

[Heraclitus]

It is a natural reaction to demand that somebody enetering your comfort zone adapts himself to such a degree that he/she is not a perceived threat anymore. Multiculturalism is "counter natural" in this regard because it is the willingness to lower your definition of perceived threats. European countries still have to find the correct balance and a movement towards the right has been going on for some time now. I am sure it will be followed by a movement to the left.

I am not. As Europe becomes more diverse indigenus people will lean more and more to the right. In America one can neatly predict what % of people will vote Republican on average based on the presence of NAMs (non (east) asian minorities - meaning basically Blacks, Mexicans, Pakistanis, ect.) in their neighbourhoods.

Diversity has also been shown to lower social trust, and if one looses more and more faith in the state will one still trust it to spend your tax money to keep afloat the ever more expensive (burdened by second and third generation NAMs as well as a aging native population) welfare state?

[Robert Plomp]

The people that get to the USA have to pretend they want to become American.

There's talk of adding a similar scheme in the UK, but I am sceptical it'd really make a difference rather than forcing people to pay lip service to it.

$10,000 is quite a lot of pretention.
In general the immigrants are different. Of course not in every individual case.
I think that's caused by the price and the ocean.

And of course that the culture of the American immigrants ('black Americans' and 'Spanish Americans') do not differ that much culturally from the 'western' Americans on values that matter for a more solid society.

[MikeH]

Our immigrants are worse than theres? Because some of them are islamic?